The Writing Program - Junior Year Writing

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A Sequence of Assignments from Economics 397W: Writing in Economics

John Stifler, Spring 2007

Short Assignment #1

Write a description of what one of your parents – or another close relative of your parents' generation -- does for work. To help shape your paper, follow any of these guidelines:

Give some real descriptive detail. Help your reader see the workplace, or this person as he or she is going to work and coming home again, or anything else that puts your reader visually into the story.
How long has this person done this work? How did he or she get into it in the first place?
What effect does this work, this career, this person’s routine and means of employment, have on you and the rest of your family?
What does this person's job/career/profession do to influence your own possible career direction?

2-3 pages. Due in class Feb.1.

Short Assignment #2

1. The question: What does the word “equilibrium” mean?

2. Elaboration: "Equilibrium" is a technical term in economics. Also in chemistry and biology and perhaps some other disciplines. It’s also a more generic word, used loosely in a non-technical sense. It refers to some sort of balance, right? Okay, so what do we really mean when we say something is at, or in, equilibrium? Do we mean its two sides are balanced? Then what do we mean by “balanced”? Do we mean “equal”? How do we know when two sides of something are equal? And what if the thing we're talking about doesn't have two sides or parts? What if it has three? Four? Ten? None? You see how this question can quickly spiral out of control -- but don't feel as though you have to chase it to the ends of the earth and back again. Instead, imagine that you are talking or writing for a listener/reader who is, say, 15 or 16 years old and pretty bright, but who has said to you, “I’ve heard this term ‘equilibrium,’ but I think I don’t really understand what it means. Help me understand it.” What do you say to this person?

3. Some suggestions for a strategy in writing this paper:

Do NOT bother looking up “equilibrium” in the dictionary, and do not try to start your explanation by telling your audience what the dictionary says. Your audience has already looked up the word in a dictionary, and somehow the dictionary definition seemed not really to convey the concept.
If you really want to look back at some economics textbook to refresh your memory about what you've learned about equilibrium in economics, that's okay, but don't try to answer this question by spewing economics terminology.
Instead, concentrate on finding some way to establish for your reader a concept of something (or some things, or whatever) being in what we call equilibrium. Develop the idea before you try to use the term.
AVOID simply repeating the sort of things you might write on an Econ. 103 exam on the subject. Remember, your reader is not a graduate student in economics, or even an undergraduate majoring in economics. Your reader may be a professional musician, a butterfly collector, a computer geek…. Use your imagination.
On the other hand, it’s fine to explain why "equilibrium" does become a significant concept in economics. (But how much does your audience understand about economics?)
Specific illustrations or examples will probably help. So will concrete language.

Two pages maximum. Due in class February 6

Short assignment #3

Discuss the implications of the “flattening” of the world, as Thomas Friedman describes it in the first 200-plus pages of The World Is Flat, for the person about whom you wrote in SA #1. Is that person's job likely to change in some way(s) because of any of the trends or global changes or new kinds of commercial activity that Friedman describes? Indeed, has that person's job perhaps changed already as a result of any of these phenomena? Does that person's job perhaps even owe its existence to the new kinds of business activity Friedman describes? Where does your subject for SA #1 fit in this ever-flatter world?

1-1.5 pages. Due Thursday, Feb. 8

Long Assignment #2 (preliminary stage)

Answer as many of the following questions as you can between now and April 5th.

On page 151 of The Wal-Mart Effect, Charles Fishman introduces contrasting critical views of Wal-Mart's low prices: It's the company's ability to operate super-efficiently, it's the company's willingness to compromise on quality, or it's a mix of the two. What other pairs of contrasting views of Wal-Mart can you find? Identify one or more other ways in which observers differ in their view of the real Wal-Mart effect.
On page 179 Fishman quotes one of his sources (Leape) as saying that a key problem with Wal-Mart is that they don't internalize all their costs. Consider just the Wal-Mart store in Hadley; what specific costs might this store not internalize? (Hint: You'll find stories on this subject in the past year's archives of The Daily Hampshire Gazette; the UMass library has an on-line subscription.)
On page 247, Fishman warns that we may be surrendering control of our communities, our economy, even our destiny to Wal-Mart, unless we do something or other. How scared are you at this warning?
Look through your wardrobe. Do you have any clothes you don't need, don't like, don't wear, that are in at least halfway decent condition (i.e., not ripped or stained, and reasonably clean)? What are they? * If you are feeling adventurous and/or charitable, take these clothes to the Amherst Survival Center (in North Amherst near Pine Street/Route 63 intersection) or the Northampton Survival Center (on Prospect Street) or some other similar place and donate them.
Using a Web browser or other means, find four different recent references to Wal-Mart, including if possible one from the Wall Street Journal. List them in correct bibliographical form. Summarize one of them in a paragraph.

After doing as many of these as possible, write a two- or three-page speech in which you explain to a hypothetical audience of bright 10th grade students at your old high school why anyone – Charles Fishman, small business owners, big-box retailers, environmentalists, total stoners – should be concerned about anything Wal-Mart is or does. Include for these 10th-graders at least some real economics, something you might have learned in Econ. 103 or some other course – and remember that when you talk to this audience about economics, you are doing something like explaining a chair to someone who has no concept of what "furniture" is.

The total length of this assignment may be 4-6 pages.

Long Assignment #2 (final stage)

The basic assignment:
Think of the most interesting thing you can say about Wal-Mart, and say it in 4-6 pages.

Elaboration:
There are many ways to write this assignment. Do not, however, write it by just playing back a variety of ideas from The Wal-Mart Effect or from class discussion. By all means use those ideas, but use them to support, illuminate, or serve as a starting point for your own discussion. Assignment 2.0 gave you some ideas of topics to discuss. Here are some other ideas that you may be able to react to, or comment on, or just think about, in your paper. There are many more.

On the Sam's American Choice Cola machine outside the Wal-Mart in Northampton, Mass., in large white lettering on the red background, appear these words: Sam Walton believed in the ability of American workers to produce the finest products in the world. Innovative products made to our own higher standards, that we're proud to call Sam's American Choice. We believe these products offer better value than the leading national brands. We think you'll agree, or we'll refund your money.
Responses to assignment 2.0 included such statements as these:

"Wal-Mart's allegiance is unquestionably to its customers."
"It is inevitable that a corporation will capitalize on the market and excel beyond any other."
"To its credit, Wal-Mart is using most of the money saved by paying their employees dirt to pass on to the consumer as savings."
"Wal-Mart is not concerned with the economy of the United States, only with keeping its prices as low as possible."
"We are not surrendering to Wal-Mart or to any other huge corporation, but to our own drive for consumption."

From the song "Where's Maria" by Greg Brown: “There’ll be one corporation/Selling one little box./It’ll do what you want and tell you what you want/And cost whatever you’ve got.

Format:
You may write this assignment as a straightforward essay. Or as a dialogue between two people who hold contrasting views. Or as a brief history of 21st-century retail business, written in the year 2020. Or as a long memo to your boss, who is figuring out a new retail business that will totally displace Wal-Mart and drive Sam Walton's baby into the ground. Or … you can think of other ways.

Due at the start of class on April 19.

Updated September 3, 2008